The Federal Communications Commission today released the 2015 U.S. International Circuit Capacity Report. The report presents circuit capacity data submitted by U.S. facilities-based common carriers, non-common carrier satellite operators, cable landing licenses, and U.S. international carriers that owned or leased capacity on a submarine cable between the United States and any foreign point, as of December 31, 2015.
The report shows that the total available capacity of U.S. international cables grew in 2015 to approximately 120,000 gigabit per second (Gbps) circuits, up from 91,000 Gbps circuits in 2014. Submarine cable capacity grew 35 percent per year from 2007 to 2015 and, based on data submitted for this report, is projected to grow 17 percent per year from year-end 2015 to year-end 2017.
Highlights from the 2015 U.S. International Circuit Capacity Report include:
- Among the three regions into which the Commission traditionally groups submarine cables (the Americas, Atlantic, and Pacific regions), the Atlantic region accounted for 40% of total available capacity, the Pacific region had 37%, and the Americas region had more than 23%.
- Over 87% of global capacity on U.S. international cables was activated. The non-activated capacity varied among regions with the Americas region reporting 18%, the Pacific region reporting 17%, and the Atlantic region reporting 3%.
- The top eight foreign landing points (in descending order) for U.S. international submarine cables were Colombia (9 landing points), Japan and the United Kingdom (7 landing points each), Panama (6 landing points), Brazil and Venezuela (5 landing points each), and Australia and Mexico (4 landing points each).